Constellation-Makers
by abstraction
Summary: Andromeda, retold: Serpents fear bad wolves.


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_Soon as the descendant of Abas beheld her, with her arms bound to the hard rock, but that the light breeze was moving her hair, and her eyes were running with warm tears, he would have thought her to be a work of marble. Unconsciously he takes fire, and is astonished; captivated with the appearance of her beauty, thus beheld, he almost forgets to wave his wings in the air.  
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Metamorphoses: Book IV, Fable IX - Ovid

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The sky is ink-smudged dark, heavy roiling clouds brushing the very sea, with waves that seemingly rise up and curl in vain to crash against them. Far above, seagulls circle like vultures or ripped paper, a negative silhouette against the settling dark.

Her eyes sting from the salt. The ocean wind has blown Rose's hair across her face, and strands stick to her pursed, chapped lips.

Her feet are wet.

She moves to brush the unruly strands from her face, but the metal cuffs cut deeper into her wrists, and she sighs. She is chained to an enormous slab of rock, rising from the sea as if it was a monument to the gods, and she wonders, again, how she could have expected anything differently when he offered to show her the famed Grecian Isles.

In the distance, on the coast, she can see the kingdom glittering against the last rays of the sun, flat faces which shine so bright they are a heated white against the dark, and if she stares long enough the afterimage burns in her eyes like dark stars. Before all this, she'd loved walking between the buildings, trailing her fingers against the grained walls, feeling the rough grit of it in her fingertips, anchoring her to the moment.

(She has been doing this lately - she has felt the strange, sudden need to begin feeling everything, to touch as much as she can and commit it to memory. She is desperate to remember each moment, a solid gem of experience that will sharpen in her mind if she left.

She has the distinct feeling that she will be leaving soon.)

Another wave rises up to embrace her legs, but the water no longer feels like the crushing cold it had been - it's warm, now. Or perhaps she's gotten used to the lapping water, rising slowly with each marked wave, and making her skin feel welcome. The fabric of her dress is clinging to the wet flesh of her thighs, and at the thought of the slowly rising tide she rolls her eyes in exasperation. Being offered as a virgin sacrifice (and isn't _that_ just a bloody laugh) was one thing, but she'd rather not have the Doctor rescue her while she's wearing a see-through Grecian gown that will cling to every part of her if the water keeps rising. He'd once choked on air when she used the word _breast _in casual conversation.

The sea cracks unevenly. The sky follows.

She knew it was coming but feels herself only now begin to believe it. She strains against the metal, but the salt water stings in her skin and she is tired - the ripe apple-red of blood sings at her wrists and she licks her lips, watching the horizon.

There. A flash and it's gone but she can see the white foaming V of it's wake, rippling outwards towards the kingdom on the sea, and the effervescent blurring midnight of the ocean.

"This should be fun," she says, her voice cracking from sea air and disuse. She doesn't watch the rest of its journey - she closes her eyes and rests her chin on her chest, her hair a veil of white separating her from the ocean, and she thinks a little distractedly that her mum was going to give the Doctor one _hell _of a slap when she found out her daughter became a bleeding Greek tragedy.

There's a roaring crash which Rose assumes is the stupid alien sea monster rising from the depths, the one that the Doctor had told her was _"Harmless! Well, relatively harmless."_A shriek pierces the air and a rush of water slams against her, soaking her through and through. The Grecian air is suddenly cold, tingling against the raised flesh of her arms and legs. Her teeth clatter for a moment and she shakes her head, flipping her hair out of her face and finally laying eyes on the thing that is about to kill her.

It is enormous.

All she can see is scales. Scales and_ teeth _and more teeth and she laughs in spite of herself. Right, she thinks. Harmless.

At the sound of her laugh, the creature rears back, makes a screeching noise that vibrates in her skull, her jaw tensing with the ferocity of it. Its head plunges toward her, and she thinks rather calmly that she ought to get some credit for staring the bloody thing down as it's about to devour her. It really ought to count for _something_.

At the last second the head stops, and turns almost unnaturally, one large dark eye level with her face. _It's staring_at her. She can see a distorted vision of herself, glossy in the giant orb of it's eye, and she almost doesn't recognize herself as her mouth opens and she smiles with her teeth.

"Hiya," she says.

She hears it snort, nostrils flaring large and wide, and the head pulls back again.

Well, at least she'd tried.

She watches its body bristle and wave, the ocean clapping against its form in rushing waves. Far off, she thinks she can make out a tail. It must be the size of the Empire State Building (not that she's ever _been_, mind you. She'd been bugging the Doctor to actually get them to New York after that alien Coronation incident but they'd never quite made it).

The head of it rushes down again, like a knife slicing through the open air, but instead of swallowing her whole, it faces her full on. She can see the lids of the eyes on either side of its head, and the mouth opens slowly, a tongue flicking out just past the edges. The teeth on this thing, _Jesus_, she thinks. And the _breath_.

_HUNGRY_

Rose makes a sound embarrassingly similar to a whimper. Her head had crackled with the voice of the serpent, filling her skull and somehow resounding in the marrow of her bones. Her throat burns with the need to scream. It _hurt_, and anger bubbled up inside her, feels it sparking to life in the back of her head, coating her tongue with heat. She bites her cheek and tastes the thick tang of blood.

It was going to taunt her before eating her? Well _fuck that_, if you'd pardon her fucking French.

"You know fucking what?" she says, anger soaked into her cracking voice. "I'm hungry too! But you don't see me going on about it!"

_WOLF_

Her scream at the invading voice turns into a strangled laugh. "Hungry like a wolf? Think I've heard that one before, mate."

She struggles again at the metal chaining her to the rock and feels abject hopelessness well in the very center of her being. Tears prick the corners of her eyes and she's angry and disappointed and in such total disbelief that she laughs again, a heartless sound that clogs her throat before ringing into the air like a bark, short and sweet and desperate. And maybe something else too, because the creature's whole body bristles again, but not in hunger.

_BAD WOLF_

"That's me!" she shouts. "Still want to snack on the time vortex, or are we rethinking ourselves a little?"

She's posturing. Kind of. All she knows, really, is the intense, almost painful, pounding of heart, feeling blood course through her with alarming speed, and the beginnings of sweat beading at her temples. Her head feels heavy, as if it's been filled with golden wool and her eyes feel fever-bright and aching. Her gooseflesh skin flushes with warmth, a lava-burn heat rising from her like curling smoke.

She could take this creature apart atom by atom, she thinks wildly.

"ROSE!" cries a voice from nowhere. The sound of it startles her, the familiarity piercing through the haze of her strange, gold atmosphere.

"Doctor?" she calls.

The serpent raises itself and dives toward her with a terror-inducing ferocity but suddenly keens loudly, vertebrae cracking in its spine as it falls backwards into the water, waves rising from the sudden displacement. A high whirring sound fills the air, and the shackles holding her to the rock fall open. Before she can slip into the serpent's waters, warm hands grab her waist, and her body sags against the Doctor's in relief. Her head falls to the crook of his shoulder as he hoists the rest of her up, carrying her as easily as if she was a child. She inhales his tangy tea-leaf scent and feels safe, finally. He says something, but all she hears is the sound of boiling water before she is slowly taken over by darkness.

She wakes in the TARDIS, the golden glow blinding her eyes momentarily as they crack open. She's lying on the chair-bench-sofa they have in the console room and she shivers. The Doctor is on the other side of the room, pushing buttons and pulling levers, but there is something severe about his face, something dark, and for a moment she can see his past self - the leather-wearing laughingly-condescending man she first began her adventure with. It takes her by surprise and she must have made some sort of sound, because suddenly the Doctor's face takes up her entire field of vision. His eyes are dark as barren forests, freckles flush against the pale skin. His hands are warm, cupping her face, thumbs brushing softly against the skin under her eyes.

"Well that could have gone a lot worse," she says. He laughs, and her body delights with the sound.

"Yes," he murmurs. He presses his lips to her forehead, warm and soft and reassuring. "It really could have."

She struggles for a moment to sit up, and he lets her go to allow her some movement. She looks down to see the white gown still damp and clinging to her body. She looks up to see the Doctor very carefully staring into her eyes. He pulls her up so they're both standing and she throws herself against him in a hug, arms around his neck and her cheek pressed against his chest so firmly she can hear the _thrush-thrush-thrush-thrush _of his hearts.

"Thank you," she says into his lapel, her breath making the cloth warm and damp.

"Well, I couldn't let you have all the fun," he says, but she feels rather than hears the words. They vibrate through his body and he sounds too close and too far away in the same moment, as if they are underwater.

She laughs against him before pulling back to see his face, arms still circling his neck, their bodies flush against one another. His hands are warm and firm against the small of her back.

"Besides, I love it when a girl can pull off a bed sheet. How's that for fashion, eh?" he says, eyebrows rising.

"Shut up," she says, and kisses him.

She's not wearing the sacrificial dress for long after that. He still laughs at the virgin part.

She makes him forget the joke.

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End file.
